Some unknown number of users of Microsoft’s newest Surface Pro devices are reporting they’re having hibernation issues that are causing unwanted, random shutdowns.

As ComputerWorld noted on July 7, a number of individuals have been complaining about the Surface Pro hibernation issue over the past couple of weeks in the Microsoft Answers forum and on Reddit.

(I have had only a couple of people contact me directly to see if I’d heard about this issue over the past month or so.)

Microsoft introduced the newest member of its Surface family, the Surface Pro — which it is positioning as its “most versatile laptop” — in late May. The device is the successor to the Intel-based Surface Pro 4.

A Microsoft representative in the forum posted on June 28 that Microsoft was aware of the issue and looking into it.

“We are aware of a small group of customers reporting a scenario with their new Surface Pro in which the device inadvertently hibernates. We are investigating this issue,” said “BryanH” from Microsoft.

The hibernation and performance thread on Microsoft Answers which includes the answer above has more than 250 replies. The problem seems to be happening to a variety of models, running both i5 and i7 processors.

Community Forum moderator Barb Bowman is suggesting that users who are affected should return their devices for an exchange or refund.

It’s not clear whether this problem could be fixable through a software update or not. Microsoft has had a number of battery/power issues with previous Surface models, which in some cases took months to fix.

I asked Microsoft today for an update on what’s happening. No word back so far.

Update: A Microsoft spokesperson said the company had nothing more to say beyond the statement from “BryanH” quoted above. The company also is not quantifying beyond “a small group” the number of people affected by this issue.

In other Surface news, Microsoft kicked off its back-to-school deal offers today, July 7, that include Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book devices.

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